"Just that. Few outsiders are allowed in here. There aren't as many exceptions as you might think. Chances are your Investigator doesn't know anything more about freedom than you did before you came here. He only knows what it's supposed to be."
"But there are official personnel right here who aren't free—in the administration building, for instance."
"They're not allowed into the camp proper. They can't even see into it. And the underground service facilities are connected only to windowless buildings on the surface. But just to make sure, those people are all on life tenure here. They're 1-Daymen without much time to go, and they don't go back to the cities." The young man's lips curved in a reflective smile. "Funny, isn't it? The whole Organization is dedicated to getting into a Freeman Camp, but no one outside has any idea what it's really like." He laughed outright. "We did have a kind of official tour once—before the Merger. Bunch of Easterners being given the high level treatment. We all put on a good show for them. But they didn't see what it's really like. You've got to know your way around for that."
"I guess you know your way around."
"I ought to. I've never been out."
"Never?" Hendley exclaimed, startled.
"I was born here."
The brief statement carried a world of significance. Born free! Never to have known work, worry, regimentation, routine, discipline. Never to have wanted anything. Never to have breathed the sterile, chemically purified air of the underground cities, never to have been contained in the blind-walled towers, never to have been deprived of the sun and the stars! Hendley thought of childhood with the parks and the trees and the sunlight—delightful prelude to a whole lifetime of leisure and play, with every whim or need indulged, catered to, satisfied. No wonder the young man wore his Freeman status with such nonchalance!
"It must have been a wonderful life," he said, awed by the prospect.
"I guess you'd say so. Sure," the Freeman said composedly. "But I never thought of it that way."